Abstract
Why use Magic for teaching Optics? Magicians know that, once the surprise has worn off, the audience will seek to understand how the trick works. The aim of every teacher is to interest their students, and a magic trick will bring them to ask how? And why? And how can I create one myself? In this article we consider a project I gave in 2006. I summarize the project scopes, the student theoretical studies, their “new” Grand Illusion realization. I conclude by the weak and strong points of this approach… but let's not reveal all the secrets just yet! Whatever the student's professional ambitions, they will be able to see the impact that originality and creativity have when combined with an interest in one's work. The students know how to “perform” a magic trick for their family and friends, a trick that they will be able to explain and so enjoy a certain amount of success. Sharing a mathematical/physical demonstration is not easy and that they do so means that they will have worked on, understood and are capable of explaining this knowledge. Isn't this the aim of all teaching?
Highlights
From the beginning of time people have feared what they don’t understand and sought logical explanations for inexplicable phenomena
The first magic tricks were performed in the Middle Ages by clowns and/or con-men who would entertain passers-by by getting them to bet on the position of a ball hidden in one of three up-turned goblets, the bet being usually lost
We suggest that you design and perform a Grand Illusion which can be presented several times in the school year to all students and/or to parents and/or to future new students, etc
Summary
From the beginning of time people have feared what they don’t understand and sought logical explanations for inexplicable phenomena To begin with they considered them to be the work of magic, the work of the gods, the work of God himself. The first magic tricks were performed in the Middle Ages by clowns and/or con-men who would entertain passers-by by getting them to bet on the position of a ball hidden in one of three up-turned goblets, the bet being usually lost. This trick is known nowadays under the name “cups and balls” [1]. We shall see successively the organization of higher education in France, the scope and the objectives of the P.E.S project
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